The memory of Rev. Junipero Serra, the 18th-century Catholic priest who established California missions but was also accused of terrible mistreatment of Native Americans, has catalyzed wildly disparate actions on the part of Californians.
On the one hand, Serra is due to be canonized by Pope Francis, and his burial site lies in the Carmel Mission, the site of a packed Easter Sunday Mass.
On the other hand, in the nearby cemetery, almost 200 Native Americans protested Serra’s impending sainthood, and there is a movement to replace Serra’s statue in Washington, D.C.’s National Statuary Hall Collection with a statue of Sally Ride, the first female and youngest American astronaut to blast into space. The resolution to replace Serra with Ride was offered by openly gay state Senator Ricardo Lara, who noted that Ride was gay, and said, “Sally Ride will be the first woman to represent California and the first person to represent the L.G.B.T. community in the Capitol,” according to insidebayarea.com.
Native Americans first protested Serra’s canonization in January, when Francis announced that Serra would be canonized next September. Although Francis called Serra the “evangelizer of the West,” native Americans vehemently denounce Serra as a “monster.” The Los Angeles Times notes that Serra’s own letters reveal he approved of the whipping and shackling of natives who did not follow the strictures of the Catholic Church.
[…]
Complete text and video linked here.
